Business Roundtable

What we did

The City and KDFN hosted a follow-up event to the Forum that was targeted at engaging members of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce and others from the wider business community.

Two consecutive events were planned on September 11th and 12th. Day one was a Reception which saw 47 participants. Day two was organized as a Workshop that was attended by 57 participants.

Time was spent trying to understand and build consensus on what the issue is. There is recognition that it is complex and requires better and broader understanding.

We heard that businesses also want action. There is a desire to start with a few achievable actions, and a wide variety of ideas were presented.

What we heard

Some of the things we heard:

“We have to understand what perpetuates that cycle and what we can do as a business community to break that cycle.”

“Why am I here? Part of it is business, but it is really about community. I’ve been watching what we’re talking about my entire time in the Yukon.”

“I want to help. I’d hope that we could meet again as a group with more business representation.”

“I came here to learn. I have three employees who are full­time, but they can barely pay their rent. I feed my staff because a lot of them go hungry otherwise. As businesses, we see but don’t want to talk about it. This is something we need to fix.”

“I’ve seen all forms of dysfunctional communities and I think Whitehorse is a dysfunctional community ­ in part because as a community grows it starts to lose its soul and forget that citizenship involves accepting responsibility, accountability for actions. Individual action inspires collective action. A healthy community is diverse. One that has not lost sight of every person in it, of all backgrounds.”